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Friday, 20 March 2015

Unfortunately today's partial eclipse in London will have resulted in little more than grey photos of a cloudy sky. So here are three images of eclipses past to make up for that.

The Metropolitan museum have this extraordinary set of Daguerreotypes by brothers William Langenheim and Frederick Langenheim who had opened a studio in Philadelphia. These seven images were taken during the first full solar eclipse since the invention of photography. I was interested to read that these images had to be so small (the smallest measuring 3.2 x 2.5 cms) at this early stage in the history of photography smaller cameras could function with less light and because the very nature of an eclipse means that there is limited light available William and Frederick had to use the smallest camera available.

This dramatic rendering of the eclipse from the British Museums collection is a mezzotint print ideal for creating the deep blacks and the stark contrast with the bright light. The inscription in pencil underneath suggests that this print was based upon watercolour sketches that the artist Drewitt made while at sea on the SS Ortona. I can only imagine how eerie an eclipse would look on board a boat.

We go back to photographs with this image from the V&A's collection which has already gathered 805 likes on instagram so far today. It is a print made in 1956 from a glass negative created in 1923-24 by the photographer Eugene Atget. This image has an almost theatrical quality with everyone gathered together engaging simultaneously in the same action.

Monday, 16 March 2015

This exhibition was a must see for me as soon as I saw it
advertised and the reviews did nothing to damped my enthusiasm.

Like most exhibitions at the Courtauld gallery it hones in
on one aspect and investigates it in depth. In this case, an album (Album D) of
drawings that Goya produced in the later years of his life.

The real feat of the curators is to have brought together
all the pages from this book known to be in existence. The sheets come from
museums far and wide who have graciously contributed their drawings to allow us
a unique insight into the artist’s psyche. As you go around I recommend you
take note of the names of the contributing galleries just to recognise the work
that has gone in to getting them there.

The first room sets the scene effectively including prints
and drawings which demonstrate Goya’s preoccupation with the occult with age
and its troubles and vanities. Then in the second room we get to the real
business of the exhibition, the album itself.

The masterfully executed ink drawings veer from the
hauntingly horrible to the poignantly beautiful. In the first pages images of
gnarled witches abound with their stooped postures, jutting chins, broken teeth
and sunken malevolent eyes. Some fly through the air either tumbling down to
hell with reckless abandon or swooping up by the power of their magic, others
gnaw on babies or collect them to take to the great witch master. There is madness
and a primal erotic and voyeuristic charge in many of the images. Figures look
up each others skirts or are clinched in twisted embraces.

Wicked Woman Goya

However in the last pages of the book, the subject matter
shifts. Goya shows us aged and stooped figures leaning on sticks with toothless
grins. My personal favourite drawing belongs to this category. It is an image of an old woman dancing to the
music of the castanets in her hands. She throws her left leg up in a joyful
gesture seemingly carefree and with little regard to her frailty. These later
drawings appear to show sympathy and care we see that the cruelty reflected in
them is not a fictitious mythical and fantastical one but rather the everyday
cruelties of age.

He can no longer at the age of 98 Goya

Goya appears to answer the inevitable question of where
these images came from within the series itself. After the particularly
repulsive image of a witch about to tuck in to a supper of raw baby which is
shown above we see an image entitled by Goya He wakes
up kicking. It shows an old man appearing to wake from a nightmare with
that horrible start which we all know well. The implication is that these are
images and visions drawn from Goya’s own dreams and imaginings reflecting his
darkest fears and preoccupations. This is also eloquently expressed in the print
below from his Capricios series in the first room entitled The sleep of reason
produces Monsters.

The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters Goya

The album is roughly dated to 1819-23 coinciding with the
artist’s famous Black Paintings which he painted directly on to the walls of
his house in Madrid. Like these paintings it is unlikely that these drawings
were intended for public consumption. Luckily for us both the paintings which
were stripped from the walls and the drawings have survived the test of time. Most
of the sheets even maintaining the fascinating titles that Goya gave them.
Allowing us a privileged look into the head of Goya as an old man.

One of Goya's Black Paintings Two old men eating soup

Exhibition runs until 25th May 2015. For more information
and to book click here.